No country in the world has cultivated arrogance the way Britain has. But the sad truth is: The former global power can't even find its way to the door without tripping over its feet.

"When Theresa May shows up in Brussels with yet another Brexit-related proposal, you can be sure that just one day later, it will no longer be worth the paper it is printed on. She either presents ideas that Brussels has long since rejected or her plans have already been chucked in the round file by her own party. Or Boris Johnson has torn her apart in his column in the Telegraph.

Until recently, I felt nothing but sympathy when I would see the British prime minister wander in front of the camera at EU summits, with her crooked smile and kooky offers. Lately, though, I have been catching myself thinking: "Go with God. But go!"

I am weary of the whole shambolic, self-harming process. I suspect that the UK (or the Leavers, anyway) are suffering from the political equivalent of BID - Body integrity dysphoria. From Wiki:

Body integrity dysphoria (BID, also referred to as body integrity identity disorder, amputee identity disorder and xenomelia, formerly called apotemnophilia) is a disorder characterized by a desire to be disabled or discomfort with being able-bodied beginning in early adolescence and resulting in harmful consequences.

Furthermore, the extreme Brexiters are clearly suffering from the equivalent of somatoparaphrenia:

Somatoparaphrenia is a type of monothematic delusion where one denies ownership of a limb or an entire side of one's body. Even if provided with undeniable proof that the limb belongs to and is attached to their own body, the patient produces elaborate confabulations about whose limb it really is, or how the limb ended up on their body.

The condition received public attention in the late 1990s after a Scottish surgeon, Robert Smith, amputated limbs of two people who were desperate to have this done and were otherwise healthy.

Unfortunately, a case based on regarding Brexiters as suffering from a medical condition seems unlikely to fly...

A shocked Cabinet was today told of Department of Transport contingency plans to own or lease roll-on roll-off lorry ferries to make sure vital supplies of goods, food and medicines continue to reach these shores if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

According to work commissioned by Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, a possible French decision to reintroduce customs checks could reduce freight coming into the UK via Dover and the Channel Tunnel by around 85%.

So the UK would in those circumstances have to bring in vital imports to other ports such as the Port of London, Tilbury and Liverpool.

The proposed scheme is called GOOL, or Government Owned or Operated Logistics.

“It’s the kind of stuff governments do in a time of war” said one member of the cabinet. “It is as serious as that”.

That said the best precedent for the plan was the creation by Clement Atlee’s Labour government in 1948 of the National Freight Corporation, which was originally known as British Road Services.

In the case of GOOL, three options are being examined: buying ships, leasing them or converting military vessels.

I am told the military option is thought to be the least viable.

“This was the bombshell in a meeting that contained lots of dull stuff” said another minister.

He added that perhaps it would be the “sobering moment” that showed colleagues why a no-deal Brexit would be “so damaging” few minutes ago.

The article is almost a week old, though little seems to have changed in the last few days.

What we are witnessing may be a nation, not just going into economic recession but a regression into political or cultural infantilism. The centre ground of politics has completely disappeared; the mad, the bad and the fools are now in charge.

£350M for NHS!
Easy trade deals!
Brexit hurts the EU more than us
Stop project fear
It won’t be Armageddon
It'll be ok in 50 years ,
Remoaners are to blame
Why can't we get on with it?
Brexit has been betrayed
I think we should Remain.

(The smilies on the original Twitter post added a little something, but I couldn't get them reproduced.)

Channel 4 put on a programme on 5 November based around a massive (20,000) survey of opinion on Brexit. The key result is that if the referendum were re-run now, the result would be 54% Remain, 46% Leave (don't knows etc excluded). Information here: https://www.channel4.com/news/major-new ... rds-remain

I'm not quite as pessimistic as that. The result made a huge difference to the number of areas of the country which voted to Remain - the Leave areas shrunk dramatically.

Like all such programmes with audience participation, it's patchy. They did have some senior politicians and John Curtice present, though, and they were given time to discuss the issues. They had Caroline Lucas sharing a table with Farage, which seemed a cruel and unusual punishment...

Robert Shrimsley, Editorial director and UK political commentator at the FT wrote for The Irish Times yesterday.

Brexit is teaching Britain its true place in the world.

For far too long British politicians, journalists and voters have enjoyed a patently distorted vision of the nation as indispensable world player. Now the nation is facing the painful truth that the UK is not as pre-eminent as it has liked to believe.

For proof, look at the negotiations over the Irish border. One need not get into the rights and wrongs to see that the UK has essentially been pushed around by Ireland, because the EU has thrown its weight behind the demands of its continuing member. The hard fact is that the power imbalance has meant the UK is being forced to choose between the chaos of a no-deal Brexit or undermining the constitutional integrity of one of its four sovereign parts and signing up to a significant amount of rule-taking. This is what happens when a single country that is not America or China negotiates with a global trading bloc.

"The ‘Bad Boys of Brexit’ did not act alone. Behind them lies a murky network of powerful and secretive organisations – a network we have called The Brexit Syndicate. Together these organisations are rewriting the rules of British democracy to suit themselves. Read on to find out how and join us in the battle for democracy, peace and prosperity."